I'll be honest this seems not thought out well. Here is where I stand:

  1. I acknowledge they are good at MM. If we were to outsource to a MM they would be a good choice.

I am not sold that we need this. For starters, why do we want to put OHM on an exchange? We're just diluting our grandmas who do not have the technical knowledge to offboard from a CEX and stake. And if we plan to have exchanges staking for their users, we first need to grow up our DAO in a way where that's not a LT threat to have low-info voters & CEX's voting on proposals. I've seen too many onchain govs go south once you bring in low-info stakeholders and the process just falls apart due to not having robust systems beforehand. Beyond that, our focus should be on capturing the value already in other multi-chain systems, not those who only live on a CEX and would be overwhelmed by learning how to send it to AVAX, Eth, whereever else and stake it. This pie alone is 10x & actually attracts more high-info stakeholders into the DAO. If anything I believe the best plan is to focus on this for the next 3 months and revisit CEX in 3-6 months once we've crushed it on Multichains.

The team has not laid out why now is the right time to MM. I was adamantly against CEX listings months prior and I feel it was correct then, I am still against it because I have yet to hear any compelling reasons that weigh the trade-offs properly.

If they want to MM for us, the best thing we could do is sell them OTC sOHM (gOHM) at a small discount and they can then make markets with it. What ppl don't understand here is there are a million ways to hedge discreetly even if they dont "in essence" stake directly in the contract, and it's just a huge oversight to line up the incentives that way. If they really believed in us they would put capital into the OHM project by buying our tokens and have it be an asset on their balance sheet, not just do a risk-free move where in essence there is no downside to them. If they're given sOHM (or gOHM) then at least their incentives are aligned as ours.. but as a thought as well, why don't we wait another 6m for our DAO to mature, we spin off an arm within the DAO we could do the MM'ing ourselves w/ CEXs. Even having that option open and not rushing into this is better.

TL;DR - Focus on Multichain first. CEX today isn't where the growth is. Before CEX, need to focus on more robust systems in DAO to be able to onboard lower info stakeholders. When ready for actual CEX adoption, need to create a deal with better incentives (they buy gOHM) or we do it ourselves through the DAO, the DAO by that time would be better structured to handle it.

Hard vote No until I understand why concerns are not actually major concerns

Interesting points all around. I see opportunities here and I have some doubts as well.

Opportunities are clear: More exposure for Olympus, with more volume and thus a more representative price action. Right now, with relatively low volume, the price is subject to swings from big operations that could be mitigated with higher volume, IMO.

The drawbacks are… well… they are there, and have been mentioned. The thing is, I'm not sure most of them are really avoidable mid to long-term?

What I mean by this is that our beloved Olympus is permissionless. Some of the objections here are great points, but to me it seems like those are things that could happen any moment, no? For instance, Binance could purchase 25k OHM tomorrow and decide to list Olympus. They could stake it, wrap as gOHM and have massive governance power… this all could happen and there's very little we could do to stop it.

So, what are the differences between that and this proposal? Two very clear ones that I can see are:

1- We are getting an agreement and can figure the terms under which we show up in a CEX. It provides some control for the DAO and we get to protect the protocol from certain situations which could really damage it. And yes, agreements are broken all the time. However, breaking an agreement is not free, particularly in financial systems were trust is the backbone. Much more so in Crypto, I believe.

2- The loan. I am a bit taken aback by the lack of interests of any kind. Having said that, it is true that they would be risking the other pair(s) they would be using in the LP and that the agreement to refrain from staking or wrapping for governance use takes much of the use out of the token, and thus does not really provide its entire utility (and hence, value).

I think it should also be noted that an outright purchase instead of a loan as many have suggested WOULD give a CEX full rights to stake and participate in governance. And having a CEX with governance power over Olympus is pretty scary, at least for me.

I am inclined with saying yes and choosing our own terms for appearing in a CEX and the token use, while we can manage terms that protect the most important parts of the protocol. But I will hold off an opinion until the AMA has happened and this entire conversation can be expanded further. This is by no means a horrible proposal, it's actually pretty good in light of the possible alternatives that I can imagine, but some assurances need to be there etched in stone IMHO.

I initially posted a NFW, then deleted since it was knee jerk response…gut said nfw…ok, we're 120 something posts further along and I see some people are actually for this "deal", free ohm for nothing on a "promise" to pay it back, no collateral, nevermind all that can possibly go wrong with this deal…

I see alot of responses from people more well versed in the nuances of these type of "deals" in the financial arena than me and ofc "contracts", all raised legitimate questions and points and yet somehow this is going to an ama… someone plainly said they could use aave or whomever to take a loan and pay for the ohm pblm solved… this could literally be the beginning of the end of OHM as we know it- at first seeming like a flesh would that turns red then gangrenous then leading to amputation but afterwards leads to sepsis then death.

I simply cant find any positive reason to give any entity 25K OHM for Free based on their word they will pay it back wen they very well could borrow the funds needed to buy it if in fact they were trully "credit" worthy and not just a smooth talker and contract writer…contracts are nearly always broken and end up in dispute in courts for years, meanwhile the perps make off like bandits and the victims(ohmies) are left holding nothing….

bottom line, next to nothing will change my mind for all of the reasons/issues cited above and i would actually view this deal as a nonstarter.

Dont they have an agenda. I Dont totally trust the outcome of making this move. it seems mutually beneficial but ultimately on their end. whats the benefit for ohmies?

    Still mulling it over. I think some good points of feedback were already posted. Will monitor the thread a bit, some other people are asking interesting questions.

    Just not sure if this particular deal is really worth it for potential higher price action? Feels strange to just completely do a 180 on our CEX listing stance. Just publicly I feel that we have to stand for our principals or think more about before taking a stance.

    CEX makes Ohm available for cheap without having to pay Ethereum L1 fees. But now with gOhm we can expand onto different chains. At least we make a direct profit from DeFi volume. Yes perhaps some people will buy their Ohm on CEX and sell it on sushi, but is that really going to be a noticeable increase?

    The options also seem cheap, and with an APY reduction incoming, you can profit of the short term volatility and then the upside from the option contracts afterwards. Seems too good of a deal to me.

    Maybe revisit this after a few months? Focus on other chains and the next reduction? I doubt demand for Ohm will fade in that time.

    EDIT:
    Hmm, after some thought, maybe this actually makes sense to do ASAP. Especially if it coincides with our expansion on other chains. It's very hard to gauge sometimes as the public is not aware of every decision or discussion beforehand. Reality is this: CEX is coming, whether we like it or not. Perhaps better to steer it right now ourselves? I'll wait for some more AMA and discussion but I think I'd vote in favor now.

    EDIT 2:
    Still a bit on the fence. I think I understand the two sides of the argument.

    I also want to make Ohm more accessible. If we can do that through GSR and select exchanges, that would be great. But I also don't want new people to get burned buying Ohm and then wondering why it's under-performing. Once APY is a lot lower this will pose less of an issue. You could say that each investor has to do due diligence but from our end the timing could be better slightly?

    I understand the frustration of some people who worked on this deal for months. I've seen it happen a few times before with some other proposals as well. Where the proposers have something they're passionate about and worked on for months only to then meet resistance when it comes to the forum. I always feel bad for sometimes taking the opposite side, but it's part of the system.

    So forgetting the proposal at hand, is there a way to make this more see-through? For instance maybe for testing the waters whether the Ohmies are in favor of pursuing some Market Making deals? Maybe I'm asking for the impossible. But it seems some people here seems more startled than anything. Recently I feel, there seems to have been more and more of these conflicts. Which is normal with a maturing protocol, but perhaps it poses a question on how to better ourselves in this?

    Only love, 3,3.

    EDIT 3:
    The ama was very enlightening, thank you for the time and effort. I now stand slightly in favor of the proposal. My biggest worry is still governance power being swept away by exchanges. But the fact of the matter is that we can not evade it in a simple matter. CEX listings will come sooner or later. This deal allows us to steer how we will land on the beachhead. In a few months we can revisit whether we'd like to continue in this manner. However if there is a way to revisit this in 3-6 months I still might be more in favor of that option.

    It’s a tiny loan.

    They’ll help onboarding people.

    They won’t stake.

    Sounds great to me. If GSR rugs, it wouldn’t even be that big of a deal to Olympus. And they have a lot on the line so rug is unlikely anyway.

      hippopotamus The supply of OHM will expand massively in the next 6 to 12 months, so while the option is almost in the money based on recent price action, OHM market cap would have to be far, far higher for the option to be in the money in 6-12mo time.

        KO-XD

        Totally agree with this input. The agreement if any should be code based. Sending 25k OHM in a hope of not getting screwed by "old system" agreement (paper contract) seems non-intuitive for the anon based DAO (who will even sign this agreement on the other side, CEO of Olympus, Zeus? /jk not joke) .

        Zeus

        Here: "I do agree strongly with the governance power piece, but listing is in my opinion is inevitable whether we like it or not. What we can do, however, is keep things on our own terms."

        I think giving out 25k OHM loan is just confirming that "we" actually like it. And I'm not sure that it's the terms I would personally agree to.

        Wild west example from hell: big exchange gets deposit of ohm, promises (3,3) to customers, immediately stakes all deposited into (3,3)(to fulfill the promise), opens future markets, some "independent whale" open shorts, starts sale of staking rewards, price crashes, "independent whale" makes few millions, exchange buys back ohm with much lower price. Profit? This is inevitable at some point. I just don't want to loan 25 000 OHM from treasury to see this play sooner than later.

            bone question is where do you draw the line? You might think 15million is tiny this time around. But once there's a precedent, what's stopping another MM say coinshare to come by tomorrow and borrow another 20million for free to support their MM activities? So its not just a question of materiality. A prudent organisation will have a robust lending assessment approach for both consistency and to execute responsibly. I'm not sure how advance this discussion is but like many have pointed out, the amount of info given to ohmies for debate/ discussion is inadequate and bordering on irresponsible.

              Jawesome is OlympusDAO a formalised legal entity in relevant jurisdictions? How can a contract like this be even made and enforced with a DAO?

                  Really insightful discussion.

                  CEX listing and engaging with MM is a great idea, but terms of the loan seem bad for the DAO, and I don't really trust signing a contract with some ex-GS dudes who probably have legal counsel that could screw us - even though the loss wouldn't even be that bad for Olympus.

                  We should have people in the DAO renegociate the deal imo.

                    In general, I think this proposal makes sense. Growth, integration and accessibility to OHM in as many places is possible is positive. Collaborating with an established market maker puts rocket fuel on the growth in the CEX arena. We are in a position where we cannot (and should not) avoid risk, but we need to manage risk as we aim for high growth. I think this proposal does that in a good way.

                    What I do lack in the proposal is a better explanation of why. Why collaborate with GSR and why now? You at @gsr_nyc should be best in the world to lay out the benefits in a collaboration to the Ohmies in simple and clear terms. Based on many of the negative comments above this needs improvement.

                    My explanation is this: Listing a token (or any other asset) on a new platform always have a bootstrap problem. If liquidity and volume is low, no one wants to trade this asset. With deeper liquidity, more people will trade on the platform, and others will also buy and deposit the token on the platform creating a positive flywheel. This is what a market market can help initiate and support over time.

                    For better community support I also think that it is really important that recognizable people in the DAO are clearer with why you support this collaboration. @Wartull, you mention "we have talked with many market makers and that GSR was by far the best fit". Who are "we", what is "the fit" you are looking for and why is GSR by far the best fit?

                    The last elephant in the room is what exchanges. It says "Provide liquidity for any listing on supported centralized exchanges". Today that is Gate.io, BKEX and MEXC. These are hardly tier 1 exchanges. Is there a plan for additional listings and what can we expect in terms of other listings?

                    Maven 11, proud seed investor in OlympusDAO, would like to express our strong support for the proposal. We had a several conversations with Olympus and concluded that CEX listing would considerably improve visibility of OHM to new investors that are not acquainted with the DEXes and/or are not tech savvy enough to go through the process of acquiring it (withdrawing from CEX to a private wallet, approving and buying on Sushi, staking etc.). We believe that Olympus belongs to all OHMies and that CEX listing will enable a new wave of supporters that will join our (3,3) movement. One question may arise with the above mentioned proposal - if the trading pairs will be expressed in OHM and not sOHM or gOHM, how will that simplify the whole process for new participants? Together with the DAO, we are actively working on implementing an inhouse staking module into CEXes that will make it possible for OHMies to stake their fresh OHMs directly inside of the exchange with only a click of the button. (3,3) will become even easier for all of us and definitely cheaper and faster than the current options. 

                    In the past, we have worked with GSR on other projects and can vouch for their integrity. We also believe that GSR's determination to partner with Olympus and their professionalism has been outstanding and that no other MM has a similar reach in terms of listing on top tier exchanges and experience in the DeFi space.

                    As pointed out by @Don_G_Lover, we think that both of these scenarios are very favourable to all holders and that GSR focuses heavily on the potential of excerpting the trading fees from trading OHM and that the so-called call option on the loan is treated more like a bonus in case OHM performs extremely well in the coming 6 to 12 months.
                    On top of that, GSR will not have governance rights and the loan will not be staked which will prevent the dilution to (3,3) OHMies and decrease in the APY.

                    To conclude, we are supporting this proposal as it benefits the growth of the whole Olympus ecosystem. Finally, we would like to say thank you to the whole community for engagement under this proposal. Once again we all show what it means to be an OHMie and we are very proud to be a part of this movement.

                      GM Ohmies!

                      Personally I am not in favour of a CEX listing at all. It just seems so counter to everything we are trying to build with Olympus and DeFi in general. CEXs are used for two things: Speculation and Fiat on-ramps. I don't think we really benefit from the first one -- we all know how valuable what the Ohmie community is building here in Olympus really is. We don't need retail punters to tell us that. The second we don't need as we own our own LPs - retail can find their way to us if they want. Crypto is an educational journey as much as anything and the "doing in DeFi" is a critical piece to understanding why there is so much value in being an Ohmie.

                      Ok just a couple of other thoughts:

                      • I agree with all of the points @davoice321 makes -- the questions around process/legal issues are very complex. We would be breaking new ground as a DAO should we proceed, which would be pretty cool, but I'm not sure being the guniea pig when we have so much else to be working on is the best risk/reward move at this time.
                      • A zero interest loan is also unacceptable. Shit Orthogonal Trading charges 10% on USDC lending to prop desks so there is no way we should support a freebie to GSR. Better yet, like the rest of us, let GSR purchase their OHM on market. We can't really stop anyone from using their OHM however they want. If GSR still decide to use their holdings to fund a CEX listing and MM program, good for them. We end up in the same place -- a CEX listing of OHM, but one we didn't have to bank roll.
                      • How much control/input does the DAO actually get from this agreement over the listing criteria for whichever CEX GSR MM on? In truth we couldn't stop CZ or SBF coming in and buying up a swag of OHM and then listing it on their exchanges, so any say from this agreement may be better than no say at all.

                      When I look to the future of DeFi and crypto in general, I actually don't see CEXs at all…any of them….anywhere. DeFi is eating their lunch and they are just trying to retain a seat at the table. Whether or not OHM lists on a CEX will not be the deciding factor in our long term success imho.

                        Ulysses31

                        The second point I strongly disagree with personally. Any market maker can just OTC this same amount easily today and list on an exchange where we don't have any say in the matter. Here it's a collaborative partnership with mutually aligned incentives to make Olympus succeed. Also want to stress that we currently have 800 million worth of OHM sitting idle in the DAO treasury. This would give us extra liquidity for free basically.

                            gsr_nyc

                            To approve GSR as an official market making partner of OHM, and to authorize the transfer of 25,000 OHM from the community treasury to GSR for market-making purposes in the form of a loan.

                            GSR agrees to either return the full 25,000 OHM loan amount to the community treasury at the end of the 12 month contract period OR exercise one or both of the two repayment options, allowing GSR to purchase the OHM token amounts specified below on the respective option expiry dates.

                            12,500 OHM 6 months from market making inception date at a market value of $15,625,000.

                            12,500 OHM 12 months from market-making inception date at a market value of $18,750,000.

                            There are 4 choices that GSR can do with this deal.

                            1. return 25k OHM. 0% interest rate.
                            2. buy out 12.5k OHM 6 months from market making inception date at 15,625,000. That's a 6 month 1250 OHM call option. No premium paid.
                            3. buy out 12.5k OHM 12 months from market making inception d ate at 18,750,000. That's a 12 month 1500 OHM call option. No premium paid.
                            4. Exercise options 2 and 3. No premium paid.

                            The retail and institutional CEX buyers will be diluted because there will be no staking services. If staking services are offered, then obviously CEXes will have a cut to that reward, not sure if GCR will have a cut there as well.

                            I propose that GSR revise this deal, and put up a reasonable collateral or pay a premium.

                                FluctusLux

                                Olympus receives a “premium” via the work GSR does for the protocol.

                                This proposal is a win-win.

                                Also I’m shocked at those who think there is some principal we are violating by wanting to be on a CEX.

                                    I'm generally weary of market makers, having worked with several that were weasels. Regardless, I have heard good things about GSR. In spirit, I support this proposal. However, some further thought belows:

                                    1. I would be inclined to charge an interest rate for the OHM loan. Even if only nominal, as a show of good faith.
                                    2. Should GSR decide to return the OHM at the end of 12 months, what is the plan for it? Will it be staked at that time? Will it be divided up against other current liquidity pools? Will GSR have an option to extend the term of the loan?

                                    I think the forward buy out rates are fair, and at the end of the day, more liquidity is good for the protocol. I trust the team to have assessed the quality of GSR appropriately.